two poorgradstudents

deathpenaltyinfo.org picks up the Union Leader’s article on the cost of Michael Addison’s capital murder case.

The Union Leader writes on the NH Senate’s vote against SB344. In it, Senator Joe Kenney (R-Wakefield), sponsor of the bill, calls NH’s capital murder laws arbitrary.

Sen. Joseph Kenney, R-Wakefield, sponsored the bill after the killings of three men during the robbery of a camping goods store in North Conway this year.
He said a kidnapper who kills his victim now can face the death penalty, but a serial killer with 30 victims would not.

“How is that justice?” he asked.

The Senate’s vote indicates an unwillingness to amend the state’s laws on the death penalty haphazardly, adding types of killing on a case-by-case basis.

Critics of the bill, SB 344, said its language is too vague to be certain that the state’s death penalty would continue to be invoked strictly, and on a limited basis.

Finally, slate.com’s Dahlia Lithwick writes on the slippery slope between public outrage and apathy at the Bush administration’s approval of torture.